Wisdom for children

Address given to children at the Family Service in St Mary's Nenagh on Sunday 15th August 2021, the 11th after Trinity.

Children, I’m going to talk to you today. I hope you will pay attention. I'm delighted to see so many of you here, and you are truly welcome. Those of you who are grown up can listen in, and perhaps some of what I say may also mean something to you. So, children, are you paying attention?

The readings we have heard today are both about wisdom – what it means to be a wise person. So I’m going to talk about being wise.

But first I’m going to tell you a story about one of my daughters. I’m glad she is not here because if she were, she might be embarrassed by what I’m going to say. When she was a little girl of 6, she was playing with her friends in the school playground as she waited for her mother to pick her up to go home. The playground was surrounded by iron railings. I don’t know why – perhaps she was dared – but she squeezed her head through the iron railings. And what do you think happened?

Her head got stuck! And however much she squirmed and wriggled, she couldn’t get her head out – her ears got in the way. Parents and teachers came to help her, pushing her head up and down, and round and about, until it started to hurt, but she was stuck fast. Eventually the headmaster sent for the fire brigade. They brought a special tool called a jack to push the bars apart, and so she was set free. Do you think she was a silly girl?

Well it was certainly a silly thing to do...

What does it mean to be wise? My dictionary tells me that it is ‘the ability to use your knowledge and experience to make good decisions’. In other words, before you decide to do something, you think carefully about what the result would be, and you only do it if you believe it is right, if it helps people and doesn’t hurt anybody - including yourself.

In the first reading (1Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14), God asked Solomon what gift he would like to be given. Solomon could have asked for anything he wanted, wealth, fame, and so on. But Solomon asked God for an understanding mind, able to see the difference between good and evil. In other words, Solomon asked God to make him wise. This pleased God, who gave him the gift of wisdom, but also promised him riches and honour, and long life if he followed God’s commandments. The lesson we should learn from this is that God wants us to be wise like Solomon, and that if we are, we will receive other blessings too.

In the second reading (Ephesians 5:15-20), St Paul urges the Ephesians to be wise people. They should try to understand what God wants, not just what they want. Then they will be so filled with God’s Spirit of joy that they will want to thank God for all the good things they have received from God. The lesson we should learn from this is that it is not gloomy or boring to be wise. Rather, if we are wise, we will count the blessings God has given us, and we will want to dance and sing, and say thank you to God.

Let me go back to my daughter and the railings. The next day in the school assembly, the headmaster brought her to the front, and told her she had been a very silly girl, and that he hoped others would learn not to be so silly. Bravely my daughter said to him, ‘Yes, it was a silly thing to do, but I am not a silly girl’. That was a clever distinction for one so young to make. I think what she really meant is this, ‘I will learn from this bad experience so that I can do better’. In other words, she was determined to become wise – and now she is a very determined and wise grown up, the mother of three of my grandsons, and I am very proud of her!

Let us finish with a little prayer together, responding with a loud ‘Amen!’

Dear God, please show me how to be wise.
Help me to understand the consequences of my choices,
what is good and what is bad,
and help me always choose the good.
Help me to see all the blessings you have given me,
until I want to dance and sing to your praise and glory.
In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen